Opinion

08.03.11

Former Debt Chiefs: More Work Needed

Mark Wilson

The deficit-reduction deal isn’t a "solution,” it’s “just a step forward,” Erksine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the former co-chairs of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, write in The New York Times. The $2.1 trillion in reductions is half of what the country needs—and cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security as well as tax reform are necessary, they argue. “The tax code is riddled with annual tax breaks amounting to $1 trillion—most of which are just government spending in disguise.”